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In Egypt God willing, tomorrow, maybe – No More!

Friends have been calling, asking me about my Egyptian friends and associates and I've reported what I could. They are all okay for now.

But to understand how deeply significant the Egyptian people's stand against president Mubarack is, you need to take a look at the Egyptian attitude toward the government before the demonstrations.

by

Carolyn Patricia scott

I could see him in the corner of my eye. He made an almost imperceptible movement – he flinched away from the screen: TV. Chris Rock in his HBO special “Bigger and Blacker” on a roll of hilarity:

“Clinton damn near got impeached. For what?  For what—lied about getting a blow job so his wife wouldn’t find out!”   

My ex’s normally deep voice, was a whisper: “is he still in the life?”

In that moment, in that question he summed up what I had come to find was the Egyptian attitude toward their government. He couldn’t believe that a mocking comedienne could live after such a routine. The extended family of friends and associates in Egypt had always given the IBM response to frustrations with the government. Salaries too low? It’ll get better, Inshah Allah – God Willing. Some government edict seem too restrictive? It will change, Insha Allah, bukrah – God willing, tomorrow. A leader’s foibles revealed, it’ll change, Inshah Allah, bukrah, mumkin – God willing, tomorrow – maybe.

“If he (Chris Rock) is in my country, he would be killed if he say something like this.”  Yes well, this is 1999. This is America I told him in between laughs. Still he was uneasy, a long summer evening, on the 4^th floor of an apartment in Hollywood and he was uncomfortable with critical comments directed at the president. With Chris Rock still cutting it up in the background, I had to choke back my laughter in order to explain that it was alright to respect and listen to and to be able to laugh at our leaders. I thought I got through to him, but an hour later when “Dennis Miller Live” came on and he start a rant about “Buuuush. . .” My ex asked again: “Is he still in the life?” I hadn’t gotten through.

I’d become used to these discussions – comparisons of American and Egyptian culture by way of TV shows, music videos and movies. I knew Egyptian culture was more conservative, more circumspect more modest.  We’d had this discussion several times before. The spring of the previous year when a distraught driver David Jones’ retrieved a shotgun from his smoldering pickup truck and shot himself in the head ending a wild TV helicopter chase and his life as cameras rolled.  

p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtLJpz

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“My God, they can’t show this in my country.”  My ex had observed at the time. I countered that they probably didn’t intend to get the kill-shot live on TV, but that the chase, the freeway shutdown and resulting mayhem was news and the public had a right to know.  Why would the government want to hide this bit of news anyway?

“So no one can do something like this.”  Uh! Would people jump off a bridge if a crazy guy jumped first? “No,” he answered. “You don’t understand. The government can’t show this. You know those people who shoot at all the police?” He was referring to the North Hollywood shootout at the Bank of America when a pair of gunmen in body armor loaded with pistols, rifles and shotguns sprayed armor piercing ammo from AK-47s that movie. “Those people that shoot at the police saw that movie and they get their ideas from that movie.

“Heat” was the movie, the Michael Mann crime-thriller starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. He continued, “Americans love this kind of movie. That’s why people do those things.”  Not all Americans, of course, I had to admit that I was one of those who loved that kind of movie. That’s why I had it on DVD.  I had that, “Terminator 2”  -- but I had “Titanic,” “Devil in a Blue Dress,” and “The Wizard of Oz” as well.  But all of the love stories and children’s classics were no defense against the Egyptian conviction that we Americans are too liberal, too free to show the ugly side of drama, of life. I resigned myself to that until last week, when, finally Egyptians stood foursquare in the public eye, in the eyes of the world.

It is difficult to explain to friends and relations how significant this past week’s demonstrations are in a country that loves historical or melodramas or soap operas and annual religious programming, a country that has never seen a live police chase across its highways, shoot outs, bombings and disturbances barely get a notice in print media  and or historical dramas,  doesn’t show live police chases, for a people who are used to deferring to the government, demurring when challenged by authority, who have submitted to the imperious,  rough police justice. God is finally willing, tomorrow has arrived and Egypt will be forever changed, no maybe about it.